Anti-freezing and stretchable triboelectric nanogenerator based on liquid electrode for biomechanical sensing in extreme environment

Abstract

The development of intelligent and wearable electronics raises an urgent requirement for stretchable, durable power sources and sensors. Especially, self-powered sensor that can work with high sensing sensitivity and stability in harsh environments is greatly desired for wilderness exploration and urgent rescue. Herein, an anti-freezing, stretch-matched, and liquid electrode-based TENG (Abbr. as AS-TENG) is developed and demonstrated for biomechanical sensing in extremely cold environments. The liquid electrode with the integration of lithium chloride electrolyte, graphene oxide micro-/nano- sheets and ethylene glycol (LiCl/GO/EG) acted as the electrode is encapsulated within a dielectric elastomer as the electrification layer, allowing the resultant single-electrode AS-TENG to achieve a high stretchability of 200% and high electrical performance output with open-circuit voltage of 317 V, short-circuit current of 27 μA, and short-circuit charge of 100 nC. It can be used as a self-powered wearable sensor to be attached on human body for monitoring the biomechanical motion, and can also be used as a power source of a self-charging system to power electronic devices. Most importantly, the AS-TENG can work under severe condition within a wide temperature range (−40 ~ +25 °C) without sacrificing its sensing performance. This work provides a broad application prospect for the development of anti-freezing, stretchable, and liquid electrode-based TENG as wearable sensor under harsh conditions.